Wednesday, April 29, 2009

A year ago, I weight approximately 229 pounds. Then I got busy with schoolwork and my weight suffered. It eventually climbed up to 240 pounds around the start of last quarter (eg, right after Christmas).

240 pounds is the most weight I've ever been. It's the max, the upper bound. That's the weight I reached as an undergrad that triggered my huge weight loss back in the day. And I was back there again.

In the last quarter and a half, I've dropped 22 pounds. I'm now around 218, just (10 pounds down from last year). Which is about a third of the way to my new goal weight of 176 (instead of the nebulous <180). A third of the way in four months, hopefully I'll reach it by the end of the year.

Actually, this is my final quarter of school (hopefully), so the rate of weight loss is actually increasing at the moment. Since I don't have a fixed schedule, I always have the time to do my exercises on work-out days (mon-wed-fri [I _should_ ride the bike every day, but I don't]). Not that it really takes that much time anyway.

I am once again surprised at how a little effort goes a long way. Almost always less than an hour, and only three times a week, and the pounds drop away. Of course, it's a pretty intense hour, but still, time-wise it's not a lot.

Or perhaps most of it is food discipline. I rarely give in to my urges for unhealthy snacks anymore. At the moment, those urges are fewer and farther between, but I do remember how intense they were at the start of the year.

So that's it. Once again, the secret to rapid weight loss turns out to be diet and exercise. We should tell people!

UPDATE:OK, so I wrote this post before the weekend that George visited and we had the big dinner and Ken brought two pies and a tray of brownies and two huge bags of chips and all the other things I don't normally eat, and George and I gorged ourselves at the excellent Bangkok Thai restaurant and then China Buffet... Anyway, long story short, I weight myself this morning. 225. Wut... I'm surehoping that a lot of that is just regular weight fluctuation... I think I'll go hit the bike for a while.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Rhett Dashwood (a hero name if I ever heard one) spent months viewing Victoria, Australia through Google Maps, collecting images for each letter in the alphabet. If one were inclined, one could probably duplicate this for any region, giving each country/state/city its own Google Maps font.

Monday, April 20, 2009

In years gone by, I used to file by phone, which was way easy. Unfortunately, now that my money is earning interest, I no longer qualify for the 1040EZ. Anyway, I don't really have time to do all the math on the 1040A by hand, so my brother recommended TurboTax.

Let me tell you, it was great. It asked what forms I had, and had me entered my data. It did all the number crunching for me. Bing bang boom, I was done. This was March 27th.

I filed electronically. The estimated date for my refund direct deposit was April 10th. When the 10th came and went and no deposit was forthcoming, I went to the IRS's Where's My Refundpage. I was then informed that my return (which I had already been told was accepted) would now be accepted on the 14th. So, even if there were an error that was caught in time, I would only have a single day to fix it.

Well, then I forgot about it. The refund deposit never did show up and I just got busy with schoolwork. And then the notice came.

Through the little window on the front of the envelope, I could read "We are writing to you because there is an error on yo[...]". Awesome. :-( I opened it up.

Why We Are Sending You This NoticeWe are writing to you because there is an error on your 2008 Federal Income Tax Return. We will explain why we made the change and what you need to do.

Why We Made The Change

We changed the amount of the recovery rebate credit you claimed on Line 42 of your Form 1040A because the amount entered was computed incorrectly.

Wait, what? Recovery rebate credit?

I looked at my tax return, line 42 "Recovery rebate credit (see instrs)". I can't see instrs because I don't have the tax booklet or any of the actual forms. TurboTax calculated this value for me ("95" says TT).

Ahhhh.... I'm beginning to remember now.

I didn't receive a stimulus check last year, because my income for the previous year indicated that I probably wouldn't qualify (I came back to the US towards the end of 2007, so I didn't earn enough income). The stimulus check itself was just a prebate (is that a real word? I saw it on the IRS website, but I think they might just be fucking with me) against our 2008 taxes. Since I didn't get the check in 2008, I should have qualified for the money on my tax return. SOMEhow, TT didn't crunch the numbers right, or just assumed that everyone got the check last year, or something.

Anyway, the IRS was kind enough to catch it and bump up my refund by $205. Thanks, IRS.

My favorite part of their notice was the second half, where they tell me all about my options for disputing this change. It does put me in quite the quandary, as I am ethically opposed to government handouts (they're giving me money I didn't earn), but I'm also a broke college student. Hmmm....

Japanese Year Three Teachers (Fanta)Show/HideThis is a whole series of commercials (in Japanese, but with subtitles). As a former 3rd Grade Teacher in Japan (third year in middle school, equivalent to high school freshman), I identified with this commercial. ^_^ There aremore (sans subtitles). This was posted to YouTube in 2006, so it must have aired in Japan while I lived there. I guess I didn't watch enough TV. :-/

So, CWalken, the "Christopher Walken" twitter account, has been removed (impersonations are verboten).

I'm glad.

See, I loved the CWalken tweets, but I hate everything about Twitter (including the terminology. Tweets? I feel like I'm taking CRAZY PILLS).

I almost even made a twitter account, just to follow CWalken more easily.

But, now that they've banned the account, I won't have to do that. In fact, now that the only interesting (to me) thing about twitter is no more, I can forget about it entirely.

The ONE THING I regret is not keeping a record of my favorite CWalkens. SOMEONE should do the same CWalken thing*, except with a blog. (CWalken at Blogspot is already taken by a couple of douchesacks that don't even use it)

*And by "The Thing" I mean how CWalken wasn't written by just one guy. It was an open account; people who thought of something that would be funny if said by Christopher Walken would post stuff to the account. Now, I think a little moderation would have been better, but the basis is sound.